Clemens Family Relocates to Europe: Day By Day

July 12 Sunday – In Aix-les-Bains Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus having just received their check and note. He returned the check and asked them to place it in credit with Brown Shipley & Co., London, to draw upon as he wished or to gain a letter of credit from them. He referred to the “new continental company which has secured Kipling, Howells & others,” and said that he’d advised the company the matter was in Chatto’s hands, whose “powers were unhampered.” Chatto had also sent books (some requested).

July 12 Tuesday – In the S.S. Lahn, at sea en route to Bremen, Sam gave a reading. In a mock trial, Mark Twain was accused and convicted of “inordinate and unscientific lying.” Paine writes,

July 12 Thursday – Sam was en route from Southampton to New York on the S.S. Paris. In France, Livy wrote Sam a letter of concern (not extant) to which he responded on July 23.

July 13 Wednesday – Sam was still at sea on the S.S. Lahn.

July 13 Thursday – The Clemens family traveled a short distance to Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany for Livy’s treatments. Sam’s Aug. 5 letter to his English publishers reveals they stayed at the Kurhaus Hotel. His notebook gives the arrival time at 6:25 p.m. [NB 33 TS 23]. On this day Sam wrote a short note to Professor Lawrence B. Evans, asking him to respond to a German student who was trying to “beguile the gullible author out of an autograph” [MTP].

July 13 Friday – En route from Southampton to New York on the S.S. Paris, Sam wrote to Livy:

Livy darling, we shall arrive early to-morrow — Saturday. It has been an astonishing voyage, as regards weather: warm, brilliant, smooth — the sea is a millpond, all the way over.

July 14 Tuesday – John Habberton for N.Y. Herald sent Sam a clipping from the July 11, 1891 Publishers’ Weekly p.43 that read: “MARK TWAIN, it is reported, intends starting a humourous journal in London.” Was it true? Either way, he’d “gladly print” Sam’s response in the Herald [MTP].

July 14 Thursday – On or about this day the SS. Lahn reached Bremen. Shortly, Sam continued on to Bad Nauheim to rejoin Livy. No evidence was found that he stopped along the way. His notebooks are not clear on the point, but have several pages criticizing German bookstores, a lack of newsstands, inefficient postal systems, and cheaply manufactured books that sell for $2 and that fall “to pieces when you open” them [NB 32 TS 13-15].

July 14 Friday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam:

I have not cabled you as you requested because none of the things you wished me to cable about have taken place, but I have not forgotten your instructions [MTLTP 352n3]. Note: See June 26 for Sam’s code words he wanted Hall to send for various what-if’s.

Hall also made a suggestion about the possible sale of LAL:

July 14 Saturday – The American Line steamship S.S. Paris arrived in New York. The N.Y. Times of the following day noted the arrival of Mark Twain [July 15, 1894 p.16 “Well-known Passengers from Europe”] Frank D. Hill the U.S. Consul at Montevideo was also listed, but not Consul Morse who Sam named in his July 6 to Livy.

July 15 Sunday – The N.Y. Times, July 16, 1894 p.8 in a column dated July 15, which included several misc. articles announced that Sam was Henry H. Rogers’ guest at the Oriental Hotel today. No enlightenment was given with the announcement.

July 16 Monday – In New York Sam wrote on Players Club stationery to Mary Mason Fairbanks in Newton, Mass. He was sorry for her “great loss” of her husband, Abel Fairbanks (1817-1894), who died in Boston on July 4 [MTLMF 274]. After a few comforting words, Sam wrote :

July 17 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Monday July 17, noon — arranged for pension — 6 Marks a day per person; 4 rooms 60 Marks a week” [NB 33 TS 23].

July 17 Tuesday – In New York Sam wrote on Players Club stationery to Livy. He’d deposited money, he thought $100, with Drexel Harjes in Paris to cover money that daughter Clara mislaid. The balance of the letter related the Rogers family’s grief over the loss of Abbie Gifford Rogers (Mrs. H.H.

July 18 Saturday – In Aix-les-Bains Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, responding to a letter (not extant). No, Sam said, he wanted a letter of credit from Brown Shipley & Co. for the amount of Chatto’s check, as there was “nothing so convenient & so handy” as one of their “ordinary circular letters of credit.”

July 18 Monday – In Bad Nauheim (which, according to Clara in My Father Mark Twain, p.113 Sam called “Bath No-Harm”) Sam wrote to Sarah A. Trumbull (Mrs. James Hammond Trumbull), mother of Annie E. Trumbull.

July 18 Tuesday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany Sam wrote to Charles J. Langdon, asking that Matthew Arnot’s 45 royalties transferred by Arnot to Livy and sent to Franklin G. Whitmore for safe deposit [MTP]. Sam’s notebook:

July 18. Wrote C. J. L. [Charles J. Langdon] to have Arnot’s 45 royalties transferred by Arnot to O.L. Clemens & sent to Whitmore for Safe Deposit [NB 33 TS 23].

July – In the July-December issue of Library and Studio Part I of “Life of Mark Twain” was published. (Part II would run in the Jan. to June, 1892 issue.) Will M. Clemens’ report is in The Twainian for Nov. 1940, Tenney citing, p.19. The Twainian bears only the citation of this article with no synopsis.

A copy of Walter Scott’s The Abbot (1860 ed.) inscribed: Jean Clemens Aix les Bains July,. 1891 [Gribben 614].

July – Sam’s notebook included a memo of The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages, by François Gouin, translated by Howard Swan and Victor Bétis, London (1892) [Gribben 269; NB 32 TS 12].

Also in the notebook: “After July 1, ’92, my royalties are to be sent to me by check, a few hundred dollars per month” [NB 31 TS 58].

J. Stuart’s article, “Mark Twain,” ran in Literary Opinion [The Twainian, Dec. 1940].

July – Sam’s notebook mentioned Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution (1856) [Gribben 128; NB 33 TS 22]. Sam also noted “Poem to the Nightingale & Owl (cuc) or Abusive Sketch” [NB 33 TS 23]. Note: This may refer to the medieval (ca. 1200) poem The Owl and the Nightingale.

California Illustrated, p.170-8 ran “Reporting with Mark Twain” Quoted by Fatout [Tenney 21; The Twainian Dec. 1939; Fatout, MT in Va City p.31, 114, 117, 173-4]. See August entry.

July – The North American Review published the essay, “In Defense of Harriet Shelley” in July–Sept. 

Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam, setting forth a proposed contract for serialization of JA, and the book rights [MTP].

July 19 Sunday – In Aix-les-Bains, all was not soaking in the baths and suffering from rheumatism. Paine writes of Sam’s time here and his excursions:

“I’ve got back the use of my arm the last few days, and I am going away now,” he says, and concludes by describing the beautiful drives and scenery about Aix — the pleasures to be found paddling on little Lake Bourget and the happy excursions to Annecy.

July 19 Wednesday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Sam wrote a few lines to Frederick J. Hall, thanking him for a letter which had just come. Evidently the letter contained promissory notes for Sam to sign, for he wrote:

I will not stop to answer it, but hurry the notes off at once — as August is not far away, now [MTP].

July 19 Thursday – H.H. Rogers telegraphed Sam from Washington to ask him to go down to Manhattan Beach with the Rogers family. Sam went down in the afternoon, sleepy and “played out” from the heat that he had to “sit silent” while Cara Rogers Duff and friends talked. After dinner they all went out to watch fireworks.

July 2 Saturday † – At the Glenham Hotel in New York, Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. Though the letter is given July 1 by MTP, it is labeled by Sam “Saturday” and Sam advises he was going to Elmira “to-morrow (Sunday) but shall be back here Monday evening.” Thus it is labeled July 2. Also, Sam may have sent a letter to Hall while in N.Y. due to an office closure for the weekend. He did not make the trip.

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.